VOD Feature :: Tapped

Tapped

TAPPED, a fantastic documentary that examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil.

Western Diet Put Children At Risk

Scientists compared youngsters from a rural African village with another group living in Italy and found a dramatic difference. The African children had less obesity-linked bacteria, and more fatty acids which protect against inflammation.

The diet of the African children was similar to that of people living in the modern Western world thousands of years ago. Of the Italian children, only those who were still breast-feeding harbored bacteria resembling the African children’s.

The trillions of microbes that inhabit the human gut are considered an essential ‘organ’ that helps to digest food, protect against disease-causing bugs and limit inflammation.

The Telegraph reports:

“Pediatrician Dr Paolo Lionetti … and colleagues said children in industrialized countries who eat … ‘Western’ diets may reduce microbial richness — potentially contributing to a rise in allergic and inflammatory diseases in the last half-century.”

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Your Mattress Could Be A Cancer-Causing Radiation Antenna

The rate of breast cancer in Western countries is 10 percent higher in the left breast than in the right. This also is true for the skin cancer melanoma.

Researchers have suggested a surprising explanation for this — and for the dramatic increase in rates of breast cancer and melanoma over the past three decades.

In Japan, there is no correlation between the rates of melanoma and breast cancer, and there is no left-side prevalence for either disease. The rate of breast cancer in Japan is also significantly lower than in the West.

This may be due to differences in sleeping habits in Japan and Western countries. Previous research has shown that people prefer to sleep on their right sides, possibly as a way of reducing weight stress on the heart.

This is most likely the same in both the East and the West, but the futons used for sleeping in Japan are mattresses placed directly on the bedroom floor, in contrast to the elevated box springs and mattress of beds used in the West.

According to Scientific American:

“… [A] 2007 study in Sweden conducted between 1989 and 1993 … revealed a strong link between the incidence of melanoma and the number of FM and TV transmission towers covering the area where the individuals lived …

Consider, however, that even a TV set cannot respond to broadcast transmissions unless the weak electromagnetic waves are captured and amplified by an appropriately designed antenna. Antennas are simply metal objects of appropriate length sized to match the wavelength of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation.”

In the U.S., bed frames and box springs are made of metal, and the length of a bed is exactly half the wavelength of FM and TV transmissions. The maximum strength of the field develops 75 centimeters above the mattress, so when sleeping on your right side, your left side will be exposed to the highest field strength.

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Rapid Meningitis Test Tells If Child Has Brain Disease

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking test for meningitis and septicaemia that can tell if a child has the deadly diseases within an hour. The speed factor is vital because the first symptoms of meningitis are similar to a viral infection and therefore difficult to diagnose at an early stage.

However, youngsters with the bacterial infection can rapidly deteriorate and die within hours.

The test detects whether a child has meningitis, which is the inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord or septicaemia, which is the blood poisoning form of the disease.

The small piece of equipment resembles a portable home printer. A sample of blood or saliva produces a colour reading that determines if the child is infected.

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Drugs Discarded In Trash Can Land Up In Drinking Water

The federal government advises throwing most unused or expired medications into the trash instead of down the drain, but they can end up in the water anyway, a study from Maine suggests.

Tiny amounts of discarded drugs have been found in water at three landfills in the state, confirming suspicions that pharmaceuticals thrown into household trash are ending up in water that drains through waste, according to a survey by the state’s environmental agency that’s one of only a handful to have looked at the presence of drugs in landfills.

Concerns have grown in recent years over pharmaceuticals reaching drinking water supplies. An Associated Press investigation in 2008 reported that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans contains minute concentrations of a multitude of drugs.

It’s commonly believed that the vast majority of drugs that get into water supplies come from human and animal excretion and that smaller amounts come from flushing them down the toilet or drain, a practice the Food and Drug Administration says is not recommended for most medications.

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